


Back to Black

by uumuu



Series: Fëanorians beyond the First Age (AUs) [18]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Slash, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Mild Language, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Reunions, Second Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 11:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17960036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: Celebrimbor receives an unexpected visit and goes on a journey that changes his fate.





	Back to Black

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to amyfortuna who betaed this and basically helped me finish it.
> 
> Cáno = Maglor  
> Nelyo = Maedhros  
> Quendingoldo = Pengolodh  
> Casarrondo = quenya for Khazad-Dûm

His main problem right now – Celebrimbor mused – was that he didn't know his great-grandfather Finwë all that well. He had never really had the chance to establish a bond with him, which must be why he felt so uncomfortable looking at Finwë sitting opposite him. Even Finwë’s voice sounded so foreign. They had shared the same house only during those years long ago in Formenos, but even then Celebrimbor spent most of his time at his grandfather’s side.

Finwë didn’t even look much like Fëanor. If he had, he would have felt more familiar to Celebrimbor, and might have stirred up an emotion greater than mere surprise.

Finwë was in the middle of explaining, in a very matter-of-fact way, how he had been remade by the grace of the Valar. 

Celebrimbor interrupted him, not caring if he sounded brusque. “So why did you come here?” Finwë’s unexpected arrival was just the past sweeping down on his peaceful, carefully balanced life. 

“Well, let's say I didn't really feel like I belonged in Valinor any longer. Arafinwë is king and rules with his wife. Indis, Findis and Lalwen are with him, and Findaráto was already remade.” Celebrimbor looked up, genuinely interested for the first time, but Finwë didn’t elaborate “His other sons will no doubt be remade in due time, as will Ñolofinwë and his sons. They can rebuild their happiness, even without me. They learnt to be happy without me long before I even died, I guess. Besides, I had a very precise reason to entreat the Valar to give me a second chance at life.”

“I suppose the Valar didn't realise that.”

“No,” Finwë chuckled.

“Good to hear they learnt nothing from Morgoth's deception.” Celebrimbor's sarcasm could have dug a hole in the stone floor.

Finwë's chuckle became full-fledged laughter. When he laughed, he reminded Celebrimbor in some weird way of Maglor. That was one more thing he didn't care for. “It's not like _I_ could have stirred much trouble. Most of my people are still dead, and who would follow me now?”

“But this means you will probably never see Grandfather again.”

“Unless I die again, probably not. He knew that. He's with his mother, you know.” Finwë said with a vague hint in his voice that he was trying to apologise about something. 

“What about Father?”

“Your father is there too, of course.” Finwë sighed and looked away. “Let's just say Míriel wasn't happy at all about her situation when we met again. Meeting Fëanáro and looking after him, then meeting your father and uncles gave her a sense of purpose even in death. I still hope the Valar will relent some day and give both Míriel and Fëanáro a second chance, too. They did lift the Doom after all, in the end.”

“Much good it did, when we were already almost all dead or thralls.” Celebrimbor stood up and walked to the window. The view over Eregion from his rooms always calmed him down whenever his memories troubled him: it was the fruit of his honest work, a small blameless dream come true. He stared at the rain falling down gently on rooftops and streets as he said: “The Valar should have sent you back before we ever left Aman.”

“I'm not sure things would have turned out better. I was furious too, when I died. I warned Manwë when Melkor first came to Formenos and he did absolutely nothing. I had to face Melkor and Ungoliantë alone when they came for the Silmarils. And Míriel...she was so desperate, so bitter. She longed for her body, for her craft...she longed to live, and Námo was deaf to all of that. If I had come back, I don't know that I would have been a much better king than Fëanáro.”

“It would have been much better for Grandfather...for all of us. We would have been more united, at least.”

“That yes, I suppose.” Finwë tapped his fingers on the table the same way Maedhros used to do when he was nervous, except that Finwë's fingers were unblemished and baby smooth. “Though I did fail at keeping my people united, too. That's also why I didn't want to stay in Valinor...I don't deserve that peace, and I wouldn't know what to do with it. Also –”

“What?” 

“I promised Míriel I would look after those of her descendants who were still alive.” Finwë worried his lower lip, looking more like an adolescent with a guilty conscience than like the former High King of the Ñoldor in Valinor. “I did think to ask Námo to let her be remade in exchange for my life, it should have been fine since we would have been apart forever that way, but...it's hard to give up your life entirely for someone else.” 

Finwë had the grace to look more than a little embarrassed when he said that. 

“So, you want to look for Uncle Cáno?” 

“And Nelyo.”

“Maedhros is dead,” Celebrimbor protested automatically, turning completely away from the window.

“Don't you think I would know better than you whether he's truly dead or not? Oh, I know all the stories that go around.” Finwë waved his hand. “I met that Quendingoldo guy when I arrived in Lindon. He had no idea who I was and spun his whole tale to me like I was some witless Avar. I had a hard time not laughing in his face! Maedhros isn't dead anymore than you are.”

Celebrimbor couldn't argue. He had doubted the tales. After all, Maedhros and Maglor were by all accounts alone with each other when Maedhros reportedly committed suicide, and Maglor was alone with himself when he threw the Silmaril away. Celebrimbor hadn't believed his doubts because he had been doggedly inclined to doubt that his own father was dead, at times, when he missed him too much and he almost convinced himself that if he went out into the world and searched he would one day find him. 

“And well,” Finwë began, waiting until Celebrimbor gave him a quizzical look and he could look him straight in the eyes. “I want to make sure you don't end up dead.”

“Me? Why would I end up dead?”

Finwë took his time before answering. “The Valar never sent someone named Annatar to Middle-Earth.”

“What should that mean?”

“That he's not who he claims to be.”

“Who would he be then?”

Finwë hesitated again. “We believe it is Sauron.”

“We?” The name sent unpleasant shivers down Celebrimbor's spine. His mind went to the rings – the ones he had made with Annatar, and the ones he had made on his own.

“Me and your father and grandfather and uncle and your great-grandmother. Míriel even asked Vairë and Vairë never denied it.”

Celebrimbor left his place near the window, strode to the table, and sat down. “Sauron was apprehended by the Valar during the War of Wrath. Surely they didn't let him flee.”

“I'm afraid they did.”

Celebrimbor didn't want to believe the Valar could be really that stupid. 

“So you're saying I'm fool, that I was being used.”

“Not that.”

“Well, you can say whatever you want, I will not abandon that which I have built and nurtured for so long!”

Finwë gave him an indulgent smile. Celebrimbor understood that smile: it was as if Finwë was telling him how similar he was to his grandfather. Reaching across the table, Finwë took hold of his hands. 

“Would you travel East with me, for a while at least?”

“No. I let go of my family a long time ago and I don't want to meet them again before the end of days.” That was a lie, and it came out sounding like one. Finwë's thumbs moved in circles over his palms. Celebrimbor blushed, but went on. “I'm sure you can make your way East without much trouble, since you already made the journey once. You might even find some of your old kin over there.”

“I would love for you to meet them, if they are still there. I’ve also heard there are Dwarves in the Red Mountains. It would have been nice to make contact with them when I still lived in Cuiviénen. Perhaps then I wouldn’t have made the Journey in the first place. I’m sure they would be happy to meet you too, since you are so close to their kin here in Casarrondo.”

Celebrimbor looked down at their joined hands. He wondered how much Finwë had found out before reaching Eregion. How much Finwë had purposefully striven to find out before meeting him. 

“There's also someone only you can help me find.”

“Who?”

*

After three years in the Red Mountains, news reached them: Sauron had attacked Eregion, razed Ost-in-Edhil, and killed most of its inhabitants. The few survivors went into hiding. The Dwarven messenger also reported that the Doors of Durin held against Sauron. He had been unable to attack Khazad-Dûm. 

Apart from those doors, and the three rings Celebrimbor had made in secret and taken with him when he left Eregion, nothing of what he had created still existed.

Celebrimbor managed to make it to the guest rooms he shared with Finwë before the news settled in his heart and he began to cry. He barely noticed when Finwë sat next to him on the bed and hugged him.

“It's my fault,” he mumbled, sniffling. “It was as you said. I was a fool, I should never have trusted him.”

“It's not your fault, Tyelpo. You had the best of intentions.”

“I should've at least been there when he attacked.”

Finwë clicked his tongue, tightening his hold. “You would just have been killed yourself, or worse.”

“What if he attacked just because I wasn't there? I made those three rings on my own and he –”

“Even if that were the case, it would still not be your fault.”

“I _had_ to be there.”

“No, Tyelpo. You are not responsible for any of this. Sauron is.”

“Why couldn't the Valar lock him up somewhere? Why didn't they look for him after he escaped?”

“The Valar couldn't be bothered to track Morgoth down before he started torturing people again, it figures if they wouldn't care about his lieutenant.”

“They could at least warn us against him! The bloody idiots!”

Celebrimbor sat straight and wriggled free of Finwë's hold. With frenzied eyes staring directly at Finwë's face, he started pouring his heart out. “Grandfather was right! The Valar expect us to bear with patience the consequences of all their mistakes, never mind that we suffer and they don't, but they are quick to lash out when we make mistakes. Of course it's easier to keep a few elves in Mandos for the rest of days than it is to keep a watchful eye on a single fucking maia!” He inhaled, fists shaking. “I wish I had never left my father. I could have been with him, even if it meant dying a kinslayer. It would have been better than knowing that everything I built was destroyed by Sauron because the Valar are utterly, ridiculously useless.”

“That's how I felt when Melkor and Ungoliantë attacked Formenos. When the world went dark and the darkness itself seemed to crush me I could only think that if I had just stayed in Cuiviénen with Míriel she would never have died and Melkor would have had a harder time ruining our lives.” 

“We tried our best, and it wasn't enough.”

“We did,” Finwë kissed Celebrimbor's forehead, just as his father used to do when he was a teen. It occurred to him that Curufin must have learnt from Fëanor and Fëanor from Finwë. “If nothing else, you are alive and I don't have to fear Míriel's wrath.”

Celebrimbor gave a weak, tear-stained smile.

“I'll go get you something warm to drink.”

When Finwë came back with a jar of warm mead, Celebrimbor was throwing the sheets of parchment where he had jotted down his ideas and all the new things he had learnt from the Dwarves of the Red Mountains into the fireplace.

Finwë set the jar down on the table and rushed to Celebrimbor's side. “That is your work.”

Celebrimbor didn't stop. “I had so many new projects in mind for when I went back to Eregion.” He shrugged. “They are meaningless now.”

Finwë sighed and backed off a little, watching silently as fire consumed Celebrimbor’s enthusiasm, ingenuity, and hope. He looked back up at Celebrimbor once all the parchment had turned to ash, resignation and grief and profound love written on his face.

Celebrimbor had, by this time, learnt that when Finwë looked at him this way, he saw not only himself, but his father and grandfather as well. So he said what they would have said.

“We should leave here tomorrow.”

“Wouldn't it be better for you to rest a while?”

“No, I need to be on the move. I will go mad if I sit and think about what's happened. You wanted to find Uncle Cáno and Nelyo, and Írissë's son too, don't you? I swear on Father's memory that we will find them, if it's the last thing I do.” He had often heard people say that there was no return to Cuiviénen, but for him it was the opposite: there was no point going back west, to the shores form which his great-grandfather had travelled to Valinor. That life was gone. “And...if I ever come across another one of the Ainur I will know how to deal with them.”

The Dwarves gave a lavish dinner for him. They didn't call it a party but the atmosphere was far from mourning. They praised his talent, and thanked him for his collaboration with their distant kin in Khazad-Dûm again. Celebrimbor wasn't in the mood for celebration, but he appreciated the Dwarves' attitude. He would have hated to be pitied by the people whose respect and trust he had worked so hard to win.

The Dwarves saw them off with small, practical presents to help their search.

Celebrimbor and Finwë scoured the land beyond the Red Mountains, marching north all along the coast on the Eastern ocean, and then back south. The tales from Beleriand had spread further than they imagined, and people usually understood who Celebrimbor was talking about when he asked about Maedhros and Maglor, and even those who didn't know the names knew who the Sons of Fëanor were, though a few seemed to view them more as creatures of legend, larger than life protagonists of a tale that had little to do with real life. The lands south of ancient Cuiviénen were a different story. Nobody seemed to know Maedhros and Maglor or the Sons of Fëanor there, and so Celebrimbor resorted to descriptions: tall, red-haired and one-handed for Maedhros and short, curly hair and velvety voice for Maglor. 

The descriptions usually yielded headshakes and befuddled gazes, until they got to a peninsula jutting out into the ocean so far south that Celebrimbor started to doubt they could ever find their way back. 

In a remote town on this peninsula, they came across a pair of women, and Celebrimbor did his best to adapt his description to a Quendian dialect that not even Finwë understood much of. As he spoke, the women suddenly beamed.

“Oh, you mean Kemi and Nenn!” one of the two said excitedly.

“Kemi and Nenn?”

“Yes, the tall redhead,” the other woman confirmed, raising one arm dramatically, “and his singer husband, they live in the village past the bog with the other bright-eyed ones and the people from the North. You can't miss them.”

Finwë asked for more precise directions, apparently unperturbed by the implication that Maedhros and Maglor were a couple. To be fair, many Quendi used the same word to mean both brother and husband. Celebrimbor thought he had learnt to understand the nuances of how people said it, and could distinguish between the two, but maybe he was wrong.

*

“Who would live past this bog!” Celebrimbor huffed once he and Finwë were on solid ground again. He would have believed they had the wrong spot if the women hadn't mimicked the act of trudging through a mire. 

They uncomfortably sloshed on towards a hill, climbed it and finally saw the village, which stood half around a lake and half on the water of the lake itself.

There was no-one to greet them or stop them, or no-one who cared enough about their presence to. Celebrimbor and Finwë would have liked to meet someone just to ask which was Maedhros and Maglor's house, at least. After wandering around the village for a time, Finwë pointed to a big house built almost in the middle of the lake, and connected to the shore by a long bridge. The eight-pointed star was engraved on three sides of it.

“That should be it,” Celebrimbor said, staring at the design which reminded him all too keenly of the Doors of Durin, and of his father.

“Yes...unless it's the house of a close follower.”

There was a little girl playing at the end of the bridge, directly in their way. She didn't seem bothered by their approach, or was else too absorbed in whatever she was scribbling down on a large sheet of paper. 

Celebrimbor studied her. Maybe Finwë was right and this wasn't the house they were looking for. The girl had a wide face and big eyes like the southern Tatyar. He tried asking anyway. “Excuse me, is this the house of Mae–...Kemi and Nenn?”

The little girl finally looked up. The sheet in front of her was covered in minute, very familiar musical notes. Celebrimbor's heart gave an involuntary leap. “Maybe it is,” she replied with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Who are you?”

“We are friends of Maedhr–...Kemi and Nenn.”

“Are you?” the girl asked, then pointed right at Celebrimbor's eyes. “Don't you come from the West?” 

Celebrimbor smiled in an attempt to look as friendly as possible. “Yes, we do. My companion was originally from Cuiviénen though.”

“The village chief says people from the West are not to be trusted.”

“Kemi and Nenn are from the West too, aren't they?”

“But they didn't want to be there!”

“Maybe I didn't either,” Celebrimbor offered, crouching down.

“How do I know that's true?”

Celebrimbor looked back up at Finwë, who shrugged. It was just a child, he had to be patient. “Could you please tell me where Kemi and Nenn are?”

“I could.”

“So, where are they?”

“I could, but I'm not sure.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't know who you are.”

“Kemi and Nenn will tell you if I meet them.”

“I don't know that.”

Celebrimbor's patience was wearing thin. He was too anxious to find out if his uncles were really there to put up with the girl's childish antics. “This,” he said, annoyance creeping into his voice, and tapped one finger on the notes the girl was scribbling. He lost his balance in the process and nearly fell on top of her. The girl shrieked and started crying for help, even as he scrambled away and stood back up.

From around one of the other houses two men came swimming towards them.

“Orladin, are you okay?” the first one, tall, red-headed but not exactly one-handed, asked once he was close enough. Maedhros hoisted himself up on the platform upon which his house stood and did a double take. “Tyelperinquar! Grandfather!”

Maglor emerged from the lake beside Maedhros and rushed to pick the girl up. “What's wrong?”

“Daddy! This is a horrible person from the west!” Orladin glowered at Celebrimbor while she held onto Maglor's wet curls with both fists.

Maglor smiled, then planted a soothing kiss on Orladin's cheek. “No, dear. That is your cousin Celebrimbor. And the person who is with him is Grandpa Finwë.”

Puzzlement slowly, doubtfully displaced annoyance on Orladin's face. “But...but you always said Celebrimbor is clever and this one doesn't seem to be.”

Celebrimbor snorted. 

“Oh he is, he is. He must just be tired and maybe a little hungry now.” Maglor turned his smile on Finwë. “Shall we go inside?”

Maedhros and Maglor hurried to put on dry clothes and quickly got a kettle of tea ready. Maglor handed steaming cups to Finwë and Celebrimbor, who became absorbed in the decorations of the ceiling while his uncle was close. 

Strings of glass beads and other crystals, in a variety of shapes and colours, hung from each of the intricately carved wooden beams. Although Amrod and Amras were the members of their family mainly interested in wood-carving, Maedhros had often supervised them, and learned the craft alongside them. Maglor was interested in more than music: Celebrimbor remembered that at times he worked with his father and grandfather in glass and crystal. Celebrimbor closed his eyes tightly and took a sip of tea. He swallowed before opening his eyes again. The tea looked like regular green tea but didn’t taste quite like it. He swirled it in his cup before taking one more careful sip, then dared to look at his uncles.

Maedhros and Maglor sat opposite him, behind the pot where a delicious-smelling lunch simmered with a low hum. Maedhros was turned sideways to face the far wall while Maglor braided his hair, which reached down to the small of his back and was glossier than Celebrimbor could remember it ever being. Eight braids, starting from the back of his head, joined into a thick line at the bottom with the ends twisted into a large knob in the middle.

“So...” he began awkwardly when it became obvious that Finwë wasn't going to talk. Finwë seemed to have sunken into his own thoughts, while Orladin sat quietly in his lap, happy to just study him. Joy and grief mingled on his face; he had managed to do what Míriel had asked him to do, but he could never share his relief with her. “This child is your daughter?”

“Yes, we found her on the far shore of the lake one day, when we were out swimming...like today,” Maglor answered. 

“You mean someone abandoned her as a baby somewhere you would find her?”

Maglor nodded.

“Why?”

“Probably because they were fairly sure we would take care of her. When we left Beleriand we found an orphan on our path after crossing the Blue Mountains, and soon after we settled here someone left a baby our very doorstep. It was obvious the child we had with us couldn't be our biological daughter – she's blonde, too, you know – so they probably thought there was a good chance we would take her in.”

“Are you sure that you didn't orphan this child you found on your path soon after leaving Beleriand?” Celebrimbor didn't stop himself from asking.

Orladin reached over and pinched his arm, shouting, “don't talk about my dads like that!”

“Orladin,” Maglor inclined his head towards her, gently chiding. 

Orladin let go of Celebrimbor's arm but returned the glare he levelled at her. “My dads may have done bad things before, but they are my dads now, and you can't say rude things about them...cousin.”

Celebrimbor huffed in reply, set his cup on the floor and dabbed his hand where some of the tea had spilled. “What are your other two daughters' names?”

“They are known as Kimil and Nennil to people not personally acquainted with them,” Maedhros replied, glowing with a father's pride. “They have their own houses, we will introduce you later.”

“What's up with those names?

“Well, since we managed to recover two of the Silmarils against everybody's expectation – including our own! – and since the Valar's prophecy claimed two of the Silmarils' fate would be linked to earth and water, people concluded that we must be Earth and Water.”

“...That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

Celebrimbor could only see half of Maedhros's grin, but he didn't miss how shamelessly cheeky it was. His self-confidence had been tempered with time, with all that he had done and all that been done to him, and came with a new, more playful vanity. His tunic was made of silk, richly embroidered and decorated with beads. He wore fine rings. He wore earrings even on his cut-up ear, and they were not meant to hide the maiming but to complement it. 

“It worked! The Valar never specified which earth and which water, did they?”

“You came up with that silly quibble? Or maybe uncle Cáno did. How could it work!”

“The Silmarils are like...our siblings, for one. And Cáno's singing can accomplish much, I hope you haven't forgotten that.” Maedhros turned to face them, still grinning.

Celebrimbor was about to quip that all he had ever seen Maglor accomplish with his voice was sending hordes of orcs into a frenzy of fear, but the prosthetic hand he had glimpsed on Maedhros's right arm came into full view. Maedhros grabbed his cup with it and effortlessly brought it to his lips.

“Your father didn't make this,” he said in answer to Celebrimbor's silent question. “But his notes did help.”

“You still have them?”

“He wrote down his every last idea about a prosthetic hand for me on a single sheet of parchment, and gave it to me before we set out for Doriath. Do you want to see it?”

“Not– ...not now.” Celebrimbor drank more of the tea. His father had never tried to get in touch with him before dying. Not that it would have been easy for Curufin to do it, or that Celebrimbor would have been fine with it back then. 

“May I see the Silmarils?” Finwë suddenly asked.

His question was followed by a split second in which everybody froze. 

“Of course.” Maglor stood up, quickly coming back with a round wicker basket. 

Light spilled out and up when he removed the lid. It caught on the glass and crystals hanging from the ceiling, turning the house into a kaleidoscope of colours. 

Orladin gave a squeal of joy, holding her arms up to 'Tata's light'. 

Celebrimbor bit his lip, remembering his Grandfather letting the Silmarils shine for him in much the same way. 

Finwë wrapped his arms around Orladin, as if needing to hang onto her childish enthusiasm. “If only I had managed to keep them safe...”

“You were braver than the Valar on that day,” Maedhros firmly said, and as firmly changed the subject. “So...have you come here to stay here? Or are you just visiting?” 

“We both don't really have anywhere to go back to.” Finwë eyed Celebrimbor, who didn't contradict him.

“Very well, then you will have to talk to Nurwë, our village chief.”

Finwë paled. 

Maglor cackled softly. “Yes, he was upset when he learnt about what happened to his niece.”

“Don't worry, he must already know you're here and since you didn't end up buried in the bog he surely doesn't mean to harm you.”

“How did you meet him?”

“He found us, in Beleriand. He went by Luchanar there and we had no idea that he was Grandma's uncle back then. We learnt who he really was when we happened upon Morwë, on our way here.”

“Morwë? Morwë is here too?”

“She lives a little west of here. You came from the North?”

Finwë nodded.

“She lives near a town of men beyond the bog and past the plateau. She was exiled soon after you and grandma left. She had a quarrel with a shaman. A guy named Emon. She set his house on fire. Half his family was killed, and she destroyed all of his possessions, but he managed to survive.”

Celebrimbor nearly spat out the last of his tea, choked on it, and started coughing. Orladin shook her head and started patting his back.

Maedhros poured himself more tea, his grin positively blasphemous. “It made us rethink why exactly the Valar were so eager to keep Grandma in Mandos, if they glimpsed even a shred of her mother's fierceness in her. Ah, I can't wait for Father to meet Morwë...I will enjoy watching Taniquetil burn!”

Maedhros turned to Maglor and they shared a quick kiss on the lips before they burst out laughing, their shoulders with the matching, mirrored tattoos bumping into each other.

“The Valar took our kin from us and then released our Enemy among them,” Orladin declared. “Our whole village hates the Valar!”

“Add your Grandpa to that count.”

“...And your cousin.”

Orladin and Celebrimbor looked at each other with a hint of friendliness for the first time.

“So how did you get here?” Maedhros asked.

Celebrimbor held out his cup and Maglor promptly refilled it. This time, their gazes met and Maglor sat down next to him.

“Has something happened?” he asked.

“What about Father? And Curvo and the others? Grandmother?” 

The door creaked open before Finwë could reply.

“Uncles, I was –”

Celebrimbor's head whipped around. His tea would have spilled again if he wasn't holding his cup with both hands. 

Maeglin stopped dead in his tracks. 

Maeglin recognised Celebrimbor, just as Celebrimbor recognised him, though they had only seen each other once when Aredhel and Maeglin rushed through Himlad. Maeglin's eyes had stayed with Celebrimbor: they were the most soulful eyes he had ever seen. The scars on Maeglin's arms hadn't been there back in the First Age, though. Celebrimbor wasn't sure about the tattoos.

Maeglin quickly rolled his sleeves down the instant he noticed where Celebrimbor's gaze strayed. “I will come back later,” he mumbled, eyes lowered.

“No, Maeglin, please do stay. You should meet your great-grandfather at least.”

Finwë leant back to look Maeglin in the eye. Maeglin stiffly bowed to him. 

“Your mother is very worried about you.”

“She...doesn't hate me?”

“Oh she hates that you were harmed, not you. Definitely not you.”

“Come Maeglin,” Maedhros patted the empty cushion next to him where Maglor had been sitting. “Grandpa and Celebrimbor were just about to tell us how they ended up down here.”

Orladin took Maeglin's hand and tugged him towards her father. Maeglin relaxed and followed her, walking with a slight limp. 

*

“I can't do this Uncle, I just can't!” 

Maedhros slung a powerful arm around Celebrimbor's shoulders, pulling him close. “Don't be silly, Tyelpo. Just think of how your parents brought you up.”

Celebrimbor had never given much thought to how it felt to be a parent. He looked at Maeglin, who was rocking and cooing the baby in his arms. Their baby. Or rather the baby they had found during their usual early morning walk in the tea fields south of the hill just a few days earlier. A baby lying in the spot where they were used to sitting to watch the sun rise. Celebrimbor was sure he had heard footsteps in the grass after Maeglin picked the baby up.

“Who would abandon so many babies?”

“It's not 'so many'...Cáno and I adopted Orladin almost a thousand years ago.”

“But how _could_ someone abandon their baby!”

“We are in no position to judge, and even if we were our job would still not be to judge. There are many reasons why people can't or don't want to keep a baby. But you can make this baby happy, and we will all help you.”

Nurwë and Finwë were waiting outside, with Orladin and her eldest sister El-Etr. The middle sister, Iddha, was a little late, but she had to come with her three wives and the other Green Elves from the deep northern forest, where the still-elusive Green Elves dwelt. 

Nurwë had his box of special sculpting tools with him to carve an emblem for the baby into the roundest pebble he had been able to find. A baby's birth emblem was usually a combination of the parents' ceremonial tattoos, and as an adult any inhabitant of the village could choose to have their birth emblem inked into their skin or pick a new one themselves. Maedhros and Maglor's was the same, an eight-pointed star framed by Nurwë's own fire-flower. Orladin had had it tattooed on her chin in a large design that swirled down around her breasts and up to the middle of her chest. El-Etr had hers on the back of her right hand. Celebrimbor had opted for a slightly different emblem that took into account his mother, too, when he made his final decision to be a quendë rather than an elda. 

Becoming Maeglin’s lover had more to do with it than the fact that he had nowhere else to go. 

He had moved in with Maeglin at first mainly because his uncles' sweet talk was unbearable to listen to day in day out, and he didn't want to live in a new house, alone. 

He had much in common with Maeglin, even disregarding that they were both smiths. Their mothers had been good friends. Their relationship started to grow into something more only after Maeglin grew to trust him enough to tell him about his days in Angband, though there were still times when the only person Maeglin trusted with his memories was Maedhros. Celebrimbor couldn't really claim to be dismayed by that. Some things he would never have wanted to know. Those times were, thankfully, very rare now. 

“Tyelpo, if you make this baby happy, your father and grandfather will be just as proud are they are of your accomplishments in the forge.”

“Yeah, a few rings I couldn't have made if Sau –”

Maeglin incinerated him with a glare. “Not that name, never around the baby.”

Celebrimbor blushed – an angry Maeglin was a beautiful sight to behold – and silently apologised. “Right, sorry. I meant...that rotten fart of Eru after he had indigestion from listening to too much music by Manwë and company.”

Maeglin raised both eyebrows, then started laughing with Maedhros. 

“See cousin? You have the makings of a poet too!” Orladin slipped inside the house and between her father and Celebrimbor. Her eyes twinkled under a waterfall of intricately twisted and braided hair. She had inherited Maedhros's vanity in the same measure she had soaked up Maglor's passion for music, or maybe more. Her still-childlike enthusiasm was all her own. “Please please cousin please, you won't stop cooking stuff for me now that you are a father, right? Please! I will just _die_ if you do.”

“Oh well.” Celebrimbor inclined his head, “I would never kinslay my own cousin.”

Orladin beamed. “I love you.” 

“Shall we begin?” Nurwë said, with one of his very rare, very intriguing smiles.

Iddha waved at them from the other end of the bridge.

Nurwë waited for her to reach the doorway then walked over to the hearth, where Maglor was already sitting, with starry-eyed Finwë in tow. 

It was an extraordinary thing, how Finwë clung to Míriel's line beyond what would have been reasonable or healthy, and how he had a knack for winning their love even when he shouldn't have been able to. Nurwë and he lived together like a perfectly happy young couple who had never had a single care in their life.

Morwë herself had vowed to come to the baby's naming ceremony. By the terms of her exile she couldn't sleep in her kin's homes or share their food, but she could be with them from dawn to dusk in their new village. Celebrimbor had met her twice, in the small village with the few people who had followed her out of Cuiviénen and her current lover(s). She was petite, with black hair and black eyes that made it all too plain why Finwë had grown nostalgic when Fëanor chose to name Caranthir after her. Personality wise, she was the undiluted spring from which Fëanor, Celegorm and Caranthir's tempers had issued forth. 

It had seemed only logical to Celebrimbor to give his ring of fire, now enhanced with Silmaril light, to her. The ring of water he had given to Nurwë and the ring of air to Orladin. He hoped they would be enough to burn Sauron's face off if he came looking for him out there in the farthest East. 

“If any maia comes this way I will kill them for you, now relax!” Orladin whispered in his ear as they all sat down around the hearth. 

Celebrimbor slipped under the same quilt as Maeglin, who passed the baby to him, smiling. Celebrimbor leant over and kissed him on the lips.

Nurwë set the pebble down close to the fire, and took out his carving tools.

Maglor, sitting at Nurwë's right, raised his hand, and they all started to sing as one.

**Author's Note:**

> I gave up trying to invent names that would 100% fit Tolkien's conlangs, the people in this village would probably speak a 'new' language that is a mix of Tatyarin quenya + Noldorin Quenya + Green Elven with bits of Sindarin, anyway. The names do have meanings though: El-Etr = star of deliverance (et(e)rúna) or star of blooming; Iddha = desired/beloved (from the root *ID); Orladin = blood that is free to move (which sounds a bit creepy, I guess). Kemi and Nenn are almost-canonical words for Earth and Water (kemi was an early name of Yavanna in Qenya and nenn means 'watery' in Noldorin; also nennil meant waterfay in the early language known as Gnomish).
> 
> I headcanon that Morwë and Nurwë were both Tatyar, and very closely related to each other (siblings or twins) and to Míriel, though the specifics (including their gender) may vary (I wrote Nurwë as a woman in [Promise (Reprise)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445203)). (The Tatyar were, incidentally, the largest group to stay in Cuiviénen and thus to be properly 'Avari' (as opposed to the Nelyar who were the largest group to leave before many of them got lost along the way)). Luchanar is technically one of my OCs (he appears briefly in _Shining with Reflected Light_ ), but I really liked the idea that he might be Nurwë in disguise so I went with it.
> 
> Re:incest among the Quendi...I don't think the Quendi enforced strict monogamy as pictured in LaCE, and when you don't do that it becomes hard to tell exactly how closely people are related (adoptions were definitely a thing too, imo). There surely was some level of taboo, like 'don't sleep with your (biological) mother', but 'don't sleep with your father' might have been a bit more complicated.


End file.
